Word: precessional
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
"Some of our players have seen the Czechs on television, and we're confident we'll give them a good game," McManama said. The team his been practicing regularly since the end of September and should play well in their precession games, he said.
...like a spinning gyroscope, Mars slowly wobbles as it travels around the sun. Though this motion, or precession, is barely perceptible, the Martian axis leans in the opposite direction every 25,000 years, or halfway through a complete precessional cycle. When that happens, the northern polar area is angled toward the sun at the planet's closest approach, while the southern polar area, tilted away, freezes and traps the moisture. What interests Smith, however, is the orientation of the poles in between those extremes. Then, both polar regions receive equal heating from the sun. The warmer outer portions...
If glacier-like quantities of frozen water have accumulated in either polar cap, says Smith, enough water might be released to keep the monsoons going for centuries, and possibly millenniums, until the slow precession of the planet's axis causes one pole to begin cooling enough to draw water...
Exobiologists have suggested a number of scenarios for the survival of Martian life. Sagan, for instance, theorizes that Mars may now be experiencing an ice age. As he explains it, the planet's northern hemisphere does not now receive the maximum possible dose of solar radiation because the Martian north...